


Bloodbender

by Empatheia



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-25
Updated: 2007-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 17:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Empatheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They should have run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloodbender

"Did you know that the human body is mostly made up of water?" she asked him, deadly quiet.

"No."

"I guess you do now."

That was all she said for a long time as she sat on her knees and stared fixedly past the destruction that lay around her. Desperation, it seemed, was just as capable of giving birth to atrocity as any other cause. There was nothing left living in the new clearing that had once been a city. Even the gardens and decorative trees were shredded beyond recovery by the forceful removal of water from their veins.

The vegetation was frightening to look at, but it was a thousand times better than looking at what else was in the clearing with them.

"Katara, you saved us. You saved everyone. You probably saved the world. And you saved me. Please look at me."

She dragged her eyes, drug-glassy and wider than he'd ever seen them, up to meet his. Her hair was loose and coloured strangely, like ocher stone in the dry hills, rusty and reddened. It was a bad shade on her, it made her skin look darker than it was and her eyes demonically pale. She was usually so beautiful, his right hand. She'd been so beautiful just two hours ago, sweeping into port at the prow of their flagship while he manned the helm.

It had been a long and difficult five years of fighting, and it showed.

However, never in those five years had she been driven this far. There were burns all over her arms and chest, but her face was miraculously untouched. There was nothing to mar or stretch the expression on her face. That was good. The expression was bad enough on its own.

"Katara, please. It's over now. Let's go back to the ship and rest."

She shook her head, just a fraction of an inch. "Look at this," she said, her voice eerily devoid of emotion. "Remember when you used to tease me, saying water was the weaker element? That fire would always win?"

"I was wrong, all right? Please. Come back."

She swept her arms around her, encompassing the smouldering wasteland stretching for nearly a mile in each direction. "I can hear them already," she whispered, and now there were finally tears on her cheeks and tremors in her shoulders.

He knelt before her and caught her as she slumped forwards, shaking soundlessly. "Hear who?"

"Everyone. I can hear what they'll call me. People will be afraid of me. Zuko, please let me run away. I can't take this. It's too much."

"Katara, I won't let them hurt you. What are they going to call you?"

Her head snapped up so quickly it nearly hit his chin and she stared at him with those blazing blue-gray eyes.

She'd ended the war all on her own, leaving everyone else to trickle behind her and catch up long after the battle was already done. Three thousands firebenders. The Fire Lord himself. Also, any civilians who had ignored Zuko's warning to flee. Over four thousand people in total, gone in less than ten minutes.

The streets swam with it. The remaining tatters of walls were splattered with it. The air tasted of it. The very sky was red with it.

"Bloodbender," she told him, and then the light in her eyes went out.

  **X**

**Author's Note:**

> I should mention that this was written more than six months before The Puppet Master aired. Any discrepancies are due to that. (For example, I didn't know about the involvement of the full moon, so this takes place in broad daylight and the moon isn't mentioned.)


End file.
